Birds: New Works ​ by Lee Wen

Mirrors in the Darksolo exhibition26 March to 27 April 2014OPEN HEART (mirrors in the dark)

I am just a dreamer with dreams unfulfilledJust another seeker of truth unrevealedLook into the mirror that glows in the darkNot with my eyes but with an open heart

Dreams and reality are the twins of sanityOppressive taboos are reasons to break freePerilous guilt make my jokes blacker than blackTraumas became delusions excuses to be slack

I want to grow up and out of hidden cloudsWake up from reveries over mounting doubtsI am not a dreamer of meaningless fallaciesI want to live in realms of love, truth and responsibility

there are no mountains higher than the mindthere are no shores that love's ocean cannot bindI fought with my enemies both far and nearThe only true battle is in one’s heart right here

If ever there are phases in a man's life that are in line with some kind of philosophy or belief I would take up that offered by Ernest Becker in his book, "The Birth and Death of Meaning: An Interdisciplinary Perspective on the Problem of Man", that marked as one of the earliest to be based on a comparative, inter-disciplinary surveys of the world's most commonly held beliefs, traditions and religions looked at from the perspective of social sciences and current ideas of humanities. Not to over-simplify Becker, nor to make life more unnecessarily complicated or any other derogatory adjectives to go with it, if I still remember correctly they fall into three major phases: the personal, the social and the spiritual.

In some ways I tried to sort out my messy life by giving myself from time to time a reflection on what's going on. It is almost like a soul searching ritual that is also like house keeping of this being what has come to be known as the self. It not only is one of physicality but a body which entails a psyche, an intelligence and also a subtlety that it is a being like a house that needs to re-assessed, re-arranged and renovated to suit our changing selves, in relationships with those around and the world we live in. A world that is changing so fast that one needs to get this housekeeping done more often than before in order to keep up if not to be on the balance, sane, sensitive and un-numbed and not only in a physical way, but also psychological, social, political, historical as well as spiritual.

We can look at one's life not only from one birth that ends in one death, but actually we go through many deaths before finally kicking the biggest kick at last. But before that we are going on continuing shifts and sometimes vertigo inducing spins of unseen turbulances all around. One way to do it is getting out of our presumably stable self via spirits of the liquid kind and other not advisable substances that may lead to abuse and leading to tunnels of diffusion and delusion rather than enhancement and enlightenment of our consciousness. Many have lost their way even the gurus of such dare devil ways have often fallen into the dead ends of dissenting short cuts, in soma of ills and a safer bet would still be in time tested traditional methods of transformations. Many of which are still in practice and taught by high conscious masters, realer than real guys. But who knows which is which and where they are?

At this stage after making my self-erasure an exercise in exploring time based art, I seek to find the erased self never get completely cleared. The remaining shades and blurred lines and rubbings seem to suggest a recall and at the same time a remake of something new rather than just reproducing what was or had been but to project a new me. A renewal, a recreation and a re-enchantment of what we wanted but was forsaken. Sometimes due to our own weakness if not our inability but also our apathy. Creation of this world not only is coming from that of the beyond, the one and only, but must be completed by our own impetus and input. Not only did God put man on earth to go fishing as one of my good friends used to say but we were put here to help lend a hand at its creation, in fact it should begin from working on our self being.

Thus at the end of my exhibition of "Lucid Dreams in the Reveries of the Real", I picked up a number of unfinished projects that had kept me busy since. One of them is to draw with colour pencils on paper again. The affection for such a basic medium may seem to be a retrogressive turn of affairs, however one begins again but not at the beginning. After all we have accepted other more temporal forms of manifesting our consciousness into various media in art making, as opposed to other sophisticated media of refinement and technical know hows, the use of pencil on paper gives one the impression of child-like simplicity and yet nobility while upholding the varieties of human ideals and aspirations. 1) Self-Portraiture

The first two drawings were begun almost at the same time, "Baptism by Fire" and "Meetings with Remarkable People: Tang Da Wu, Seiji Shimoda, Boris Nieslony, Ray Langenbach. These were the preludes to the self-portraits as I sorted out my demons while going through an intensive time while preparing for the solo exhibition, "Lucid Dreams In The Reverie Of The Real" at the Singapore Art Museum. One was done in expressionism that came out of the conversation with a blank canvas way we used to do in Sembawang, the Artists Village days between 1990 to 1992. Drawing was a way to manifest a visual language spontaneously as we put our focus on certain obsessions or dilemma that the inner self was harbouring inside. The revelation in a way help to unload these uncertainties of the psychological states of mind that we were going through. Looking at the images help us to verbalize if not communicate what we found hard to share in other ways with the other. "Baptism by Fire" gave an image of a dancer inside my head dancing on surfaces of fire and water. The dance is liken to that of sufi whirling or spinning, a meditation in music and dance, maintaining one's own center while being distracted and scorched by various unexpected attacks or criticisms, as if it was a baptism of fire.

The other drawing "Meetings with Remarkable People: Tang Da Wu, Seiji Shimoda, Boris Nieslony, Ray Langenbach.", is another series of work that will have performance artists as the subject matter. In this I show the images of my most valued teachers and friends. However the first image I began with was the shadow of an airplane on the water while a horse is racing it on the bank. These were extracted from a video of Night Flight (Vol de Nuit, 1931) by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry; a 1933 film adaptation directed by Clarence Brown. Antoine St.Exupery was the author of "The Little Prince", a book so charming so true that I treasure to this day. The image of a horse racing with the airplane gives to me a succinct metaphor of what our age is still grappling with. An age steeped in technological advances losing touch with nature. The story of Antoine St.Exupery, as much as he was a poet, artist and writer, at the same time keeping abreast with technological advances of his time, being a well trained pilot who was also a conscientious civilian as one who volunteered his services during the war. That mystery of St. Exupery's dissapearance on his last flights until today seems to be poetic justice to one who upheld both poetry and technology at the same time. If I may say so our world cannot live without poetry and this is an image of the struggles of art and artist in a world excessively governed by technocrats who distrusts the artists. And as for artists who like St.Exupery, may have abilities of the "two cultures", as was discussed by C.P.Snow and his peers, somehow there are contradictions still to be dealt with, hence the image of the horse racing here with the plane's reflection on the water gives more than a call for reconciliation of the contradictions but rather stretches one's idea of reflection as opposed to that of casting shadows like those in Plato's cave.

The people who I put my money on in this casino of life are the artists I have found to show me a way of life, upholding the human spirit through poetry and adventurous quests in actions of everyday life that saved me from waddling in the existential futility, hopelessly submitting to the notion that history is all about power, money and fear. Across the bay is the iconic architecture of what i call the "Ark of mamon", the ship in the sky that seems to give many of us an assurance of triumphant hope in the face of the possibility of the great flood to come due to melting of ice-bergs in the age of global warming. At worse we rather abstain from riding as decadence and debaucherous its temptatious image seemed to recall that of a ship of fools.We see Tang Da Wu sitting across and on the grass in front of him are his playing cards, his performance images are in these cards, the risks he believes in and the game which I would rather partake in than those offered in the gambling halls of greed. Art and artists play a social role making decisions based on calculated risks taking as we faced the hard decisions and choices in order to become a creative agent on the less trodden path as much as a gambler does in the casinos. Below we look at Shimoda Seiji, Boris Nieslony and Ray Langenbach, all masters, philosophers, risk takers, in the midst of the performances they are known for. In fact the decision of taking the path of an artist are even riskier than that of gamblers as their rewards are unpredictable or uncertain if not intangible to the point of a necessary yet uncertain level of incoherence is expected to be tolerated in order to go on the chosen path. As if we are on a run way like that of an airplane, or a pair of wings we stole from Icarus and we hope nay we believe will surely take off somehow. And yes it did...somehow."Romantic Self-Portraits: Blue Dreamer, Blue Narcissus & Blue Sisyphus"Mythologies are stories we tell ourselves that have significant characteristics informing us of various hidden aspects in our human consciousness. Through these romantic self-portraits I try to review and confront my inner self without shame nor fear of reactions. In a way that playfully put myself into the mythological distinctive personas or archetypes, in order to redefine one's self-identity, while confronting overlooked phenomenon or departures from understated modesty whereby we consciously are able to recreate ourselves with derring-do. My motivation was : "To be or not to be. That is the answer." By changing Hamlet's question into an answer pitting myself in idealisms and impossible dreams, to be realized by responsible actions and pro-active self-will. The self-portraiture as form not based on egoistic selfishness but a personal quest for transformation and a chosen path towards self-fulfillment.

"Blue Dreamer" is a romantic image of my self in a shirt that looks like a straight jacket and yet the flowing sleeves looking like petals of a blossoming blue flower. However his hands seemed in a habitually tied down position and in an uncomfortable criss cross with an irrational fear to write or draw while they hold the writing instruments and empty pages in hesitation. On his chest is an image of a paradise or utopia that he believes in and his work is always directed at this as the ideal goal or quest where chivalry still exists, to dream the impossible dream, to fight the good fight in order to swing the tide towards an ideal world of justice and equality. I am also drawing them as blue, as this is the colour for those who have conscious intention for lucid dreaming. Surrounding him are images of people he loves and also phenomenon in history that affectively motivates his work and life.

"Blue Narcissus" show my self peering on the surface of a reflecting pool. The blue face is the center for the ripples of words like a poetic battle cry to assert one's self will at re-creating one's self based on freedom of choice and considerations of maintaining one's dignity while doing so. Two other images showed my recent concerns. One of Sebastian who was known as a healer, taking the pains of the other or finding that one have to suffer pain in daily life in order to be vigilantly aware of other crises. Above me is an image based on the obssesion of a longing for a simple life of the past where our origins were before becoming the complex social structure we are now in. It is a Narcissus absorbed in self reflection and yet in connection with other ties that bind.

"Blue Sisyphus", shows a crooked path which at various stage on the way to the peak is a naked blue Sisyphus with a guitar slinged on his back. Sisyphus is pushing a boulder that is shaped like a man curled up as if it was Sisyphus himself. The mountainous landscape has one half in darkness or shadows while the other is in bright sunlight. The darker side showed architecture of disarray and a poet or dead artist in the gutters, while in the light has an image taken from one of my performances. I am kneeling down with my arms spread eagle with blank canvases. One had the words "IS ART NECESSARY?" and the other "WHAT IS ART GOOD FOR?.